GOT any plans tonight?
Fancy popping down the pub for a salad and a few pints of alcohol-free lager?
What do you mean,“F**k off!”?
GettyThe Boring Brigade have now set their sights on the great British boozer – now that it looks like Keir Starmer is heading into No10[/caption]
Plans are afoot to insist every local has at least one tap for alcohol-free beer — never mind how few taps they actually have
The Sun’s Save Our Sups campaign highlighted, a staggering 500 pubs closed last year as landlords struggled with many issues – nanny state meddlers will make it worse
Well, you better get used to this scenario if the nanny state meddlers get their way.
The Boring Brigade have now set their sights on the great British boozer.
As we revealed yesterday, plans are afoot to insist every local has at least one tap for alcohol-free beer — never mind how few taps they have.
Your favourite tipple could soon be elbowed out of the way to make room for one of the big brands’ “0.0 per cent to 0.5 per cent” offerings such as Lucky Saint.
Unlucky you.
And the finger-wagging won’t stop there.
What you eat down the local is also in the crosshairs of the pleasure police.
They’re fed up with us scoffing classic pub grub like pie and mash, fish and chips and that new menu stalwart, “loaded” nachos, and want to push us towards healthier fare.
The cat was let out of the bag by Kate Nicholls, who runs campaign group UKHospitality.
I’ll bet you a Mars bar
She revealed that at a recent conference she’d had “informal discussions” with politicians about making pubs healthier places to visit and they had floated these daft ideas.
She added: “If, as expected, we’re having a Labour government, it is more likely to have a big public health agenda coming in. The last Labour government did take forward quite a lot of what would be considered nanny state measures.”
Of course. You will probably remember Gordon Brown’s big idea to ban so-called Bogof — buy one, get one free — deals on “junk” food.
That will be back too. I’ll bet you a Mars bar. Actually, make that two (I’ve found a deal).
Kate Nicholls’ fears for pubs are valid. The state — whoever is in charge — is obsessed with what we eat and drink.
Perhaps you can’t blame them for fretting about our waistlines.
We are a nation of fatties, with around two-thirds of us now above a healthy weight, according to government data, and that, of course, puts a strain on the NHS.
So we do need to fight the flab and we need to do it now.
And yes, we should also probably drink less. (And we are actually doing that. The proportion of adults who had at least one alcoholic drink a week has dropped from 54 per cent to 49 per cent in the decade between 2011 and 2021.)
But — not even a very big but — we are also a nation that enjoys the freedom to make choices, informed or otherwise.
One of those choices we make is to go to the pub — and that decision is already under enough pressure.
As The Sun’s Save Our Sups campaign has highlighted, more than 500 pubs closed last year as landlords struggled with all manner of issues, from soaring rates and food price rises, to high energy costs and a staffing crisis.
Many of us now no longer have a local to drink alcohol-free lager or eat lean cuisine in. So government tampering with pubs is a very bad idea.
Pubs are not just places to get drunk on 12 pints of Best Bitter and dip steak-cut chips into mayonnaise.
They are also the heartbeat of communities, the place for a quiet drink with pals, a game of pool or darts, or to take part in the quiz — and maybe have a fish-finger sandwich to boot.
A report by Loughborough University found that 64 per cent of people believed their local was a key place to socialise in the community.
And when that gets closed down, 86 per cent said the community suffered, not least many of Britain’s 3.83million chronic-ally lonely people.
The Government, who have screwed bars enough already with sky-high alcohol taxes, should leave pubs to be run by the landlords who know their punters best.
Deep-fat fryer
Let them decide what beer is on tap.
If their customers demand draft alcohol-free beer, don’t worry, they’ll provide it.
If they don’t, well then there’s another guest ale that will get its slot at the bar.
And if their clientele is fed up of chicken Kiev and curly fries and wants a green salad instead (although who these nutters are I’d love to know!), then out will go the deep-fat fryer.
I suspect Sir Keir Starmer knows this more than many politicians, as he seems to genuinely enjoy a boozer.
I saw the Labour leader in one on one of the recent bank holiday Mondays.
He and his wife called in to my old local in London’s Camden Town and the pair sat at a table like any other couple.
He enjoyed a few frothy pints and she was on the vino blanco. They lined their stomachs with a bag of “unhealthy” crisps.
In a few weeks he is likely to have little opportunity to enjoy such a gentle afternoon if he becomes PM and the myriad problems of this country become his to fix.
But I hope he remembers the rest of us in Britain’s boozers and only implements policies that ensure that, while he can’t be there, we still can.
GettyTuck into nanny state-approved pub grub[/caption]